Verizon Friday reported a strong second quarter with earnings of $3.6 billion on total operating revenues of $27.5 billion, a 2.8% year-over-year increase.
The company, which introduced Apple's iPhone in February, reported 2.3 million iPhone activations in Q2 2011, a slightly better result than 2.2 million activations in the first quarter. Verizon also sold 1.2 million 4G LTE smartphones and Internet data devices during the second quarter. All in all, smartphones now make up 36% of Verizon's retail postpaid customer phone base.
On the wireless front, Verizon added 2.2 million new connections (this includes devices such as the iPad), of which 1.3 million were retail postpaid users, bringing the total to 106.3 million total connections, a 6.6% year-over-year increase.
Verizon's chief rival, AT&T, Thursday reported it activated 3.6 million iPhones (although that figure includes the older model, iPhone 3GS), adding 1.1 million wireless subscribers to its user base.